


We Made a Home Out of the Stars

by twilightstargazer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: @ jroth: fuck u, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 05, bellamy and clarke actually talk wow, let's build a society fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 02:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: “It really is beautiful,” he says, soft and a little melancholic as he picks at the faded label on the bottle.Clarke reaches over to give his hand a soft squeeze. “I wish he was here to see it too,” she says, “Out of us all, he deserves this most.”Bellamy twists his hand so that their fingers are interlocked. “I want us to deserve this. All of us.”“We will. We won’t make the same mistakes this time around. We learnt from them. No more fighting or wars or… crazy AIs. Let’s justlive.”-or, the one where they do just that.





	We Made a Home Out of the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is brought to you by anger and spite. and also meha.
> 
> just a couple things to not before we jump in:
> 
> 1) this fic has multiple chapters. there will be more blarke to come in later chapters. 
> 
> 2) i've only seen like... 5 episodes from this season?? frankly i don't care to see the rest. don't @ me about any canon inaccuracies.
> 
> 3) i hate echo. i think she's about as useful as bellybutton lint. if you like her good for you. idk why you would but you do you. needless to say since i think echo is a human trash pile, this fic is not good to her. you've been warned and i don't want to hear about it in the comments.

“So what do we do now?”

Bellamy’s voice is scratchy and thick with hidden emotion as he breaks the silence for the first time in almost twenty minutes.

Jordan had left them about five minutes in, giving them time to grieve and process things in private and Clarke is glad for it. It can be said that no matter how bad things get between them, she still feels the safest at his side, complete. When Bellamy is with her, Clarke feels like she can take on the whole world.

But there isn’t a world anymore, at least not one that they’re used to. All they have is this… this  _ planet  _ who knows how far from home that Monty found to give them a fighting chance.

So for the first time, Clarke finds herself looking up at him and saying, “I don’t know.”

She doesn’t expect him to smile but that’s what he does anywhere, ducking his head to try and hide it.

“Finally run out of answers, huh.”

The words send a dull sting through her because as much as things were strained between them, as much as they were on opposing sides, it wasn’t like this, had never been like this. 

Now it’s like dealing with a stranger. Like an open wound that was dug in far too many times so when it finally healed what once was is now unrecognizable.

There are so many things she wants to say to him, to talk to him about, to just have her Bellamy back but she bites her tongue and turns her cheek and says instead, “There could be more to his message,” as she slips out of his hold to toggle with the controls. “Maybe Monty left some notes behind or he unlocked eligius’ algorithm or-”

“We don’t have to find a solution right now,” he sighs, sounding older than his twenty nine years. “Look, it’s not the end of the world. Life doesn’t hang in the balance, at least not yet, so let’s just take a minute.”

“We had a hundred and twenty five years worth of minutes to take,” Clarke says.

Bellamy levels her with a look. “That’s not what I meant.”

She sags in the chair. “I know it’s just…”

After a moment of contemplation, he hesitantly places his hand on her shoulder and offers her a small smile. “I know,” he says squeezing it gently. “The kid might be more help than computer files though. If you really want to take a crack at it right now.”

She snorts. “Not a bad idea but I don’t even know the kid.”

“Then let’s go get to know him.”

They find Jordan tending to the algae farm a level down and Bellamy lets out a chuckle when he sees him.

“You really are Monty’s son huh,” he says, and the other boy flushes.

“Considering there was no one else awake on this ship except my parents when I was born, yeah I think so,” he says, pulling his gloves loose and throwing them on the workbench. He’s wearing an apron that says ‘make algae not war’ and Bellamy makes a sound low in his throat when he spots it.

“What else did Monty and Harper teach you to do? Or tell you?” asks Clarke. “What… what has your life even been like?”

Jordan thinks about it for a minute before finally settling on, “Lonely.” He turns his head away from them, taking a deep breath. “It was just my parents and I. No one else. Yeah, they loved me and I loved them but spending all twenty five years of your life with just your parents… it’s not the easiest. No matter how much they tried.”

“But you still turned out fine,” Clarke says softly.

“I did, yeah. I could have been a total basket case but, well, because of them I’m not. They loved me. They would have given me the world.”

“Technically they did,” Bellamy says, the corner of his mouth pulling up.

Jordan laughs and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I guess they did,” he says, scuffing his shoe against the ground. 

“They were good people,” she says softly, taking a step closer to the boy. Or, man really. He’s at least a head taller than her, almost on par with Bellamy.

“The best I’ve ever known,” Bellamy agrees. “If anyone deserved a long, happy,  _ peaceful  _ life, it’s them.”

“Thanks,” Jordan swallows. It’s almost time for dinner. How about we trade stories about mom and dad then?”

Clarke smiles. “Deal.”

It only hits her when they sit by a table for dinner that  _ one hundred and twenty five years _ have passed without them knowing. It’s surreal trying to imagine that what felt like a quick nap to them was the entirety of Monty and Harper’s life and then some. They probably sat here eating tasteless algae countless of times. Jordan probably said his first words here or took his first steps, or had some other milestone here. This is where they finally got to  _ live _ .

Clarke finds herself tearing up a bit, not over their deaths this time, but for their  _ lives _ .

Bellamy was right earlier; if any one of them deserved this, it was them.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, if you were to ask him if he loved Clarke Griffin six years ago- or, a hundred and thirty one if you want to get technical- Bellamy would have said yes.

He would clenched his jaw and talked around in circles before admitting it, but ultimately he would say yes. He did love Clarke Griffin, in more ways than one. As a friend, a counsel, a co leader.

As… well,  _ his _ .

She was his person, the one who chose to see the light in him when all he saw was a monster. She showed him how to love himself and through that, how to love her.

Closing the rocket hatch had broken his heart and he spent the next six years teaching himself to unlove a girl he never had.

And it worked, to an extent.

Space was rough on all of them. They had limited rations and water and there’s only so much algae someone can eat before they go mad. They spent the first few months surviving and then, when they finally found their footing, he was able to distract himself from the pain of it all by separating from the group, working on this or that and generally just holding them at an arm’s length.

That’s probably how he and Echo grew close if he’s being honest.

He had mostly forgotten that she existed, as much as one could on a ship with only six other people. For the most part she was still an outcast among them, and dealt with that by fading into the shadows, carrying out her duties in silence.

It takes him three years to forgive her for all the pain she caused him. Three years of sitting in silence and pretending she didn’t exist most of the time. Three years of limiting his interactions with her to a terse nod and a ‘please pass the algae.’

It takes another two years for them to develop any semblance of friendship. Any feelings are shown through sparring- he’s good but she’s better- and that’s how they remain for a while.

And then Raven can’t figure out how to get back down after five years.

And there’s the prospect of them being stuck here permanently with nothing but fucking algae and recycled urine to sustain them.

He wants to punch a wall but figures Echo might be better instead.

It’s a dirty fight and she gives as good as she gets making him work for it. Each time there’s the sound of a fist hitting flesh he knows it’s going to leave a bruise and the whole thing reaches its climax when she knocks his legs out from under him in one sweeping move.

She pins him to the floor, both of them sweaty and breathing hard.

In the next second she’s kissing him, sloppy and wet with too much tongue, too hard to be sweet, too messy to be much of a turn on and it feels like an extension of their sparring session.

He still fucks her after though, with her face shoved into the pillow and a fist in her hair. It’s cathartic.

They don’t intend to start a relationship but soon he finds himself talking to her more, opening up about life on the Ark and then on the ground and she does the same.

He only starts calling her his girlfriend six months before they end up back on the ground, when going back to earth seems like a pipe dream.

Bellamy doesn’t know if he loves Echo.

He hasn’t experienced much love in the past.

He had his mother and Octavia for a while, but one is dead and the other wants him dead.

His friends love him he knows that much but to them he’ll always be Bellamy, their leader, or Bellamy, the one who’s always saving their asses at the end of the day.

He feels like he could have grown to love Gina, the girl who had an easy smile and turned a blind eye to his past, but she was ripped away from him all too soon by a war she wasn’t a part of.

But the only one who could possibly come close to what he should feel for Echo is, well, Clarke.

Sometimes he used to think that they shared a single soul stretched thin over two bodies like the old myths. That whenever they weren’t next to each other something would be pulling tight at his chest, as if it was an elastic band pulled taut, ready to snap back in place at any given moment.

With her he wasn’t anyone’s son or brother or leader. 

He was just  _ Bellamy  _ and she was just  _ Clarke _ .

Sometimes he wonders what would have been different if he knew she was alive, wonders if things between them wouldn’t be this fractured and cold.

It’s what he’s thinking about when there’s a knock on the door and when it opens it’s Clarke popping her head and looking sheepish.

“Somehow after being asleep for a hundred and twenty five years I can’t find it in myself to actually go to bed,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

It makes him smile and frown at the same time because the movement is so like the Clarke he remembers but he also knows that the Clarke he remembers wouldn’t have given a fuck about disturbing him.

He swallows those feelings and sits up.

“Same here actually,” he says. 

Dinner had been an emotional rollercoaster, both Jordan and them swapping stories about Monty and Harper until their eyes stung and throats were raw. He tells them about growing up on the ship, just him and his parents, and they tell him about life on the Ark, and the ground, and in space.

They retired to bed when they had no tears left to cry and there, Bellamy’s been staring up at the ceiling for almost two hours, lost in thought.

Until Clarke showed up that is.

He pats the spot beside him. “Have a seat.”

She hesitates for a moment before striding over, sitting on the very edge of the bed.

He bites his tongue to keep from saying anything.

For a moment, there’s nothing but awkward silence between them. Clarke sits ramrod straight with her feet tucked in beneath her while Bellamy is slumped against the headboard, legs stretched out in front him.

There’s at least an arm’s width of space between them.

Finally Clarke, after gnawing on her lip for the better part of the past few minute says, “I guess third apocalypse is the charm.”

It’s such a dumb statement, so empty and careful that he has to snort.

“And now we got a new one for humanity to fuck over,” he grumbles.

She hits his shin and Bellamy is glad that at least not  _ everything  _ has changed.

“I should hope not,” she says, “This one doesn’t seem to have an Ark or any other kind of space colony to retreat too if it blows up.”

“Yeah well, having lived in space for six years it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

He doesn’t get the reaction he’s looking for as instead she frowns and turns her head away, picking at a loose thread on the bedspread.

“We’ve never really talked about that, have we?” she asks, looking up.

He sighs, shoulders slumping forward. “There’s a lot we haven’t really talked about.”

They slide back into that awful, awkward silence that makes him want to claw out of his own skin.

Bellamy has never had patience for small talk, even now when his hot head had supposedly tempered a bit, and this thing with Clarke where there were more out of bound topics than in bound ones has him wanting to scream.

“I’m sorry for leaving you back in Polis,” she blurts out, knuckles going white from how hard she’s gripping the blanket. “I was mad at you — furious even — but it was wrong of me to leave. And-- I’m sorry.”

It sounds almost rehearsed, as though she maybe spent the past two hours trying to figure out the best way to swallow her pride and approach him.

“I already told you, it’s okay,” he says gently, trying to placate her by putting a hand between her shoulder blades and she flinches.

“I left you to  _ die _ , Bellamy,” she says with tears brimming in her eyes, “How could you possibly be okay with that?”

His hand falls down on to the bed with a lackluster ‘thump’ and he licks his lips, searching for the right words.

“I knew what I was getting myself into when I gave Madi the chip,” he starts off slowly, “And so did she. It was her choice. She knew exactly what she getting herself into. Hell, she knew exactly what  _ I  _ was getting myself into.” He rubs the back of his neck before meeting her watery gaze.

“She told me right there, before she took the chip that if she does this you’d never forgive me,” he says, “At the time, it seemed like a good plan. If Madi had the chip, Octavia would lose her power. She couldn’t kill you. Between you being dead and you being alive but hating me, the choice was pretty simple.. And if it came down to it, I would do it all over again.”

Her jaw works for a minute before she takes a deep breath and says, “I know where you’re coming from and if it was anyone else I would have agreed with you but Madi-” she stops, choking on the name.

“Madi is  _ mine _ . She’s all I had for six years. Just her and me. She’s the only one that kept me from-- kept me going,” she says after a breath. “And your sister, sorry to say, is a psycho. She would have killed her and you put her in that danger. So I am sorry for leaving you but if  _ I _ had to make the same choice again I would do it in a heartbeat.”

She wears a hard, blazing look as though daring him to contradict her.

“So we’re at an impasse then,” he says, hitching a brow.

“Maybe, maybe not,” she replies. “Look, we both made impossible choices. We don’t regret it. We regret the hurt and anger it caused the other person but not the action. At the end of the day, you’re alive and so is Madi. Let’s agree to leave it,” it’s the first time he sees her lips quirk up in the ghost of a smirk, “A hundred and twenty five years in the past.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Silence once more, not quite as heavy but still there, an awkward hiccup in the conversation.

“I just — I want to be able to talk to you again,” Clarke confesses, “And I feel like I can’t do that because there’s about ten different elephants in the room. I missed out on six years of your life.”

“Not much was going on if we’re being honest,” he shrugs, “It was probably more eventful down there for you.”

“You have no idea,” she grumbles churlishly.

Bellamy licks his lips before carefully trying to broach the topic. “Madi said — she told me that you tried messaging me everyday for six years.”

A flush paints her cheeks a blotchy red and Clarke turns away from him, embarrassed.

“I did,” she nods.

He waits for her to say more but when it becomes clear that that’s all there is to it he says, “That’s it?”

He doesn’t know why it gets under her skin, but it does as she whips around furiously, eyes glinting like gunmetal in the dimness of the room.

“Well what do you want me to say, huh?” she snaps. “That after surviving the death wave you were the first person I thought about because I didn’t want you to worry? That even though I knew you couldn’t hear me I kept calling you every single day in hopes that one day it’ll magically work? That before I found Madi the only reason I kept sane, that I kept on  _ living  _ was because of  _ you _ ?”

The words get progressively louder and louder until she’s all but shouting at him, standing at the foot of the bed, face red and chest heaving as she leaves the words to hang in the air.

For once, Bellamy doesn’t know what to say.

“Oh,” is what he comes up with and the look Clarke gives him is exasperated to say the least.

“ _ Oh _ ?” she says, “Really? That’s all you have to say?”

“I’m processing,” he retorts.

“Yeah I forgot I’m dealing with a grandpa,” she hits back with a roll of her eyes. Her cheeks are still stained pink, evidence that her embarrassment has yet to have worn off.

“I just didn’t realise…” he trails off, feeling sheepish at the admittance.

Clarke, for her part, doesn’t dwell on it. “You couldn’t have known that while you were up there moving on, I was down here using you as a personal journal.”

He finds himself smiling. “That’s one way of putting it,” he says, and she snorts.

“And I didn’t move on,” he says quietly, after a moment. “Well, I did in a way but you were still there in the back of my mind most days. How would Clarke deal with this? What would Clarke say about that? God I would kill to see Clarke watch Murphy try and learn chess.”

She lets out a watery burst of laughter and swipes at her eyes. “Murphy learnt how to play chess?”

“Yes and he’s so bad at it that he’s actually good. Don’t ask me how.”

She giggles again, even as a tear rolls down her cheek. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my messages had gone through.”

“I probably would have made my way back down in a missile like Jaha did,” he says, not entirely joking.

Bellamy cocks his head to the side, just looking at her.

“What?” she asks self consciously, letting her hair hide her face.

He shakes his head. “It's just that-- I left you,” he says in a broken whisper. “I left you behind to die.”

“It was the only choice,” she says, picking at a hangnail before meeting his gaze. “And besides, in a way you saved me too.”

“Madi saved you.”

“You both did,” she acknowledges, “But those few months before I found her… god those were the hardest months of my life. I had no food, no water, nothing. But talking to you everyday on that radio whether it was just a couple minutes of a couple hours… it kept me going.”

He feels warm all over, and has to clear his throat a couple times before speaking again. “I wish I had gotten your calls. Not just to know that you were alive but because then there wouldn’t be this huge chunk of your life missing from me.”

Clarke hesitates for a moment before she says, “Well, I could tell you about it now. If you want me too of course I don’t want to keep you from sleep or anything.”

Bellamy flashes a small smile at her and when he pulls back the covers, she surprises him by sitting next to him, back against the headboard and feet extended out before her.

There’s still some space between them and the awkwardness still lingers in the air, a thin layer shrouding everything in tangled tongues and nervous hands, but as she settles in next to him, it starts to feel like a small step in the right direction.

 

* * *

 

 

They fall asleep shortly after she’s finished recapping the first year, after she’s done recapping the disastrous attempt to throw Madi a birthday party, when her her voice starts to become raw and scratchy.

Sleep claims Bellamy first.

He’s been fighting it for the past hour but it wins out eventually and before she knows it, his head is on her shoulder and he’s snoring softly, disturbing wisps of her hair.

Clarke can feel it threatening to overtake her too, but it’s just held back by the thrum of adrenaline in her veins.

She’s so accustomed to sleeping with Madi, curling her body around her smaller one to keep it warm, listening to her soft shallow breaths slowly lull her into unconsciousness that now, here with Bellamy, it's completely foreign to her.

He's like a furnace, body radiating enough heat for her to just need a light sheet, and he snores too. Not obnoxiously so, but a deep, rumbling sound that is almost calming.

When Bellamy is asleep, she can see the memories of the boy she once knew shining through bright as day on his face.

His jawline is mostly marred by his scraggly beard, but she can still see his freckles flecked across his nose and cheeks. The lines on his forehead smooth out, making him look younger, and his eyelashes, dark and long and wispy, brush against his cheekbones.

He's still one of the most beautiful people she's ever seen, even after all these years.

A part of her feels like she should retire to her own room but another part of her, the lonely part that craved a certain kind of intimacy the past six years, wants her to stay.

That’s the part that wins, and she finds herself pulling the blanket over her legs, shifting Bellamy’s head onto his pillow so he won’t wake up with a crick in his neck the next morning.

After everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve found out, she wants this company. To have his even snores slowly drag her under, to feel the heat from his body seep into hers through the thin eligius shirts. 

The beds aren’t big, but they’re also not small enough to have her plaster her body flush to his.

Bellamy sleeps on his back, mouth slightly ajar with an arm thrown over his head and the other resting on his stomach. Clarke makes sure to leave a couple inches of space between them as she tries to get comfortable but eventually caves, huffing out a breath and nestling into his side.

It’s only because it’s the most comfortable position she tells herself, before drifting off.

It feels like no time has passed when she finally wakes up, but according to the clock on the nightstand, it’s 0900 and they’ve been asleep for almost eight hours.

Bellamy is stirring too and when he opens his eyes, his lips curl up into a sleepy smile at the sight of her and it makes her chest feels like it’s glowing.

“Hey,” he says, voice low.

“Hey,” she says.

He stretches and she hears several pops and cracks from his shoulders and back. Clarke laughs and he flashes her a dirty look.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, straightening his shirt. “Are you ready to decide the faith of the human race again?”

Clarke slumps against the headboard. “Just another Tuesday,” she sighs wearily.

He snorts and knocks his shoulder into hers. “What do you think we should do?”

“Honestly? I think we should go for it,” she says firmly, meeting his gaze.

“There's about a million things that could probably go wrong if we go down there,” Bellamy says as he scrubs a hand down his face. “And a million more if we stay up here”

“It took Monty thirty years to find the Goldilocks zone,” she replies. “He’s saved our asses who knows how many times already. I trust his judgement.”

“So do I, but still. It's an unknown planet in a galaxy that's light years away.”

“What could possibly go wrong, right?” She teases, kicking his shin lightly.

He snorts. “Cannibalistic alien life, deadly invasive species, scarce resources,” he lists out before looking sidelong at her. “The air could be toxic.”

When Clarke looks up at him she finds a ghost of a sad smile tugging at his lips. It seems like a lifetime ago they landed on Earth, bright eyed and innocent. A time before all the pain and suffering and loss.

It reminds her of the old times between them, when it was just her and him at the Dropship leading an army of one hundred teenagers. Times that she misses so much it hurts.

She smiles back at him shyly, letting her fingers graze his calloused hands.

“If the air’s toxic we're all dead anyway.”

“Death probably feels cheated, if we’re being honest,” Bellamy says as he throws his legs over the side of the bed. “I mean it’s been what? Two cataclysmic events we’ve successfully avoided so far?”

“Something like that,” she agrees as she follows him to the ensuite bathroom.

They take a moment to freshen up before heading two flights down to the bridge, where Jordan is sitting cross legged in one of the chairs with a bowl of algae. He has a tablet balanced on his lap and he’s watching one of those old earth cartoons that they used to show on the Ark. He smiles when he catches sight of them, and then it turns sheepish as he clears his throat.

“I only took out enough for one,” he says, cheeks going slightly pink, “I’m still not used to other people being, well, awake.”

Bellamy assures him that it’s fine and he grabs two packs of algae from the storage unit for them both.

Clarke makes a face as she pokes at hers listlessly and he laughs.

“Already fed up of the algae?” he asks, making a big show of shoving a large spoonful in his mouth.

“It’s  _ disgusting _ . It tastes like grass and that’s coming from someone who had to eat only that to survive for a  _ month _ .”

“And we had to eat this everyday for six years,” he counters, and Clarke sulks.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not gross,” she grumbles, but begins picking at it.

They eat in relative silence, Jordan engrossed with his show and the two of them having nothing of consequence to say. Only when they’re done and Bellamy’s packed away the dishes do they turn to Jordan and say,

“So, the planet. Did your dad ever tell you anything about it?”

He shakes his head. “Dad didn’t even know it existed when they put me into cryo. Why?”

Bellamy and Clarke share a look.

“We’ve been discussing whether or not we should go down,” Clarke tells him. “But we have no idea what conditions are like on the surface. It might be habitable but we don’t know if it’s survivable.”

“And the ship can’t support everyone,” Bellamy adds, “The oxygenator is too small to support over four hundred people and the algae farm isn’t that big either.”

Jordan is quiet for a moment before he says, soft, “My dad always talked about life on the Ark and the ground and in space. He said out them all he preferred space the best, when it was just the seven of you. He missed the friends he left behind but it was the first time he was ever truly at peace.”

He hesitates before adding, “My mom loved the ground though. She used to talk about the trees and the sunsets and how berries would stain her fingertips red.” He looks at them. “I grew up in space, on this ship, and it was nice but… I’d like to see the trees one day. Or bathe in a river. It might sound dumb but--”

“It doesn’t,” Clarke assures him with a small smile. “I was like that too.”

Next to her, Bellamy is quiet and she looks at him out of the corner of her eye before saying, “I think we should wake Diyoza. And Shaw. They had mentioned Eligius 3 before and a planet with two suns. If anyone should have an idea of what’s going on down there, it’s them.”

“We should wake Raven too,” Bellamy says, and they both turn to face him. “If anyone can find out what’s going on down there, it’s her.”

They turn back to Jordan who’s already grinning.

“Three people popsicles coming right up,” he promises, already tapping away at the controls.

Bellamy and Clarke head down to the cryo storage floor to wait for them.

“Do you think we could survive down there?” she asks as they lean against the wall, waiting for the three pods to open. Madi lies in front of her, asleep, and part of her wants to tell Jordan to wake her up too.

He glances down at her. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’d like to believe we can. But…”

“But what?” she prompts him, and he sighs.

“When Jordan was talking about how Monty loved up here I couldn’t help but remember why that was. It was because for the first time in a long while we were at peace and I think-- if we go down there then we owe it him to live in peace. He gave his life for us so we could start a new one. We shouldn’t let that go in vain.”

She finds herself blinking back tears and Bellamy scratches the back of his neck, suddenly embarrassed.

“That was strangely sweet,” she tells him.

“Thanks,” he says, gruff.

The conversation ends there as the pods slide out, and a blast of cool air hits them as it opens.

“Welcome back,” Bellamy says to the three of them while their eyes blink. “We’re not on Earth anymore.”

They split up, Bellamy taking Raven to meet Jordan and explaining things on the way while Clarke is left to do the same with Diyoza and Shaw.

“A hundred and twenty five years?” she asks, unimpressed before cursing under her breath. “God, if McCreary wasn’t already dead I would kill him myself.”

“Yeah? Well get in line,” Shaw says, a hand coming to rub his leg.

“You two knew about Eligius 3,” says Clarke, crossing her arms over her chest. “You knew they were looking for a new planet. A new earth.”

“What I know is the same as what you’ve told me,” Diyoza says. “Our mission was mining, theirs was about finding oil.”

“Right. And you?” she asks, turning to Shaw and hitching a brow.

“They were supposed to find a planet with two suns,” Shaw says, “Apparently new research revealed that this mystery planet was supposed to be even better than the Kepler ones which were the original target of their mission. They switched destinations at the last minute.”

“Why would they do that?” Clarke asks, confused.

Shaw smirks. “You clearly don’t know how big corporations are,” he says, “They only care about getting money and this system promised more than the last.”

“They would have been put in cryo just like us, preprogrammed to wake up when they arrived at their destination,” says Diyoza. “It’s the only way to survive travel in hyperspace. And if the mission was a bust or they tried to stage a coup, they would automatically be redirected back to earth.”

“So I’m guessing the mission wasn’t a bust,” Clarke murmurs.

Diyoza nods. “That, or they caught wind of the first apocalypse and decided that life on their cozy little binary star exoplanet was much better than getting burnt alive by radiation.”

“Wouldn’t the binary star provide enough solar radiation to kill them eventually?”

“Maybe,” she smirks, “If they weren’t injected with an anti radiation serum.”

Clarke’s eyes widen. “Like nightblood.”

She snorts. “That’s not the scientific term for it but sure, that.”

“Well you two have been surprisingly helpful,” she says, holstering her gun. “Guess that means I won’t kill you as yet.”

Shaw narrows his eyes at her while Diyoza remains nonplussed. “Really? And here I thought after helping you back on the ground we were friends,” she says, and Clarke snorts, a smile threatening to break through.

“We’ll see about that,” she says. “You’re free to do as you like. There’s algae and water made from recycled urine. Knock yourselves out.”

Diyoza wanders off to find a bed to lay down in (“I’m still pregnant,” she grumbles, a hand resting atop her stomach) while Shaw accompanies her to the bridge where Raven, Bellamy and Jordan are waiting.

Raven’s eyes are rimmed red and Bellamy dips his head towards her as she walks in. Shaw immediately limps off to stand next to Raven, dropping a kiss to the top of her head before murmuring something meant just for the two of them.

“Where’s Diyoza?” Bellamy asks as he wanders over to stand at her side.

“Went to lie down. You caught her up to speed?”

He nods. “She can’t believe they’re gone. And left a kid in their place.”

“None of us can,” she mumbles, watching as Raven and Shaw get to work, Jordan helping along.

For a moment the two of them just stand there, watching them type in lines of code and switching through windows on the screens, doing all sorts of things that Clarke would never be able to.

Bellamy kicks her foot lightly to get her attention.

“Wanna leave them to work their magic tech shit and get out of here?” he asks, voice pitch low just for her to hear.

“Depends, are you going to make me eat more algae?”

He grins. “It’s not entirely off the table.”

She smiles back at him. “Lead the way.”

‘The way’ seems to be a small room about five flights up and Bellamy is slightly winded by the time they get up there, glaring at an unaffected Clarke.

“Those six years alone on earth did something for me after all,” she crows, and then shrieks when he prods her between the ribs, catching her off guard. She’s ticklish there and he knows it.

“Shut up.”

“What did you want to show me?” she asks, looking around.

He jerks his chin forward. “Room down at the end of the hall.”

They walk together in silence, hands bumping against the other, and when Bellamy pulls open the door for her, she’s blinded for a second.

The room reminds her of the observation lounge back on the Ark, the one where she used to spend most of her time drawing and sketching if she wasn’t in school or with her mother. Thick glass panels run from floor to ceiling covering one half of the room, giving them an uninterrupted view of the entire planet before them. She could see the two suns, one rising just as the other sets, their rays glinting off the ocean’s water and casting a golden light throughout the room.

“How did you--”

“Jordan told me that this was Monty’s favourite spot on the ship,” he shrugs. “Wanted to check it out and figured you’d like to come with.”

“It’s  _ amazing _ ,” she whispers, still awestruck.

They sit with their backs braced against the metal pillars that hold the glass in place, right at the edge of the room with their feet pointing at each other and Clarke tries not to act too much like a child and press her face against it.

“I have another surprise for you too,” he says, reaching into his jacket.

“Oh?” she says, eyebrows lifted slightly, and they shoot up as he pulls out a small bottle. “Is that--?”

“Moonshine?” he grins, “Yeah.” He uncorks it and takes a swig before passing it to her but not before he adds, “I figured it’s about time we get that drink.”

Clarke is smiling so wide that her cheeks begin to cramp. “Only took us a hundred and thirty one years.” She takes a healthy sip and then hisses at the burn as it goes down. Monty’s moonshine is a lot more potent than she remembers.

“Hey, we had a lot on our plate,” he smirks when she passes it back. “A couple wars.”

“A couple strangers falling from the sky again.”

“Two more apocalypses.”

She snorts in laughter, feeling the moonshine start to take its effects.

Conversation flows like that between them, light and easy, talking about nothing and everything at the same time. It becomes easier the more the level in the bottle drops, but she can’t find it in herself to care, not when Bellamy is smiling and laughing, looking like the boy from that one unity day they both shared on the ground.

She used to think about it back when she was feeling lonely on earth, his smile and laugh and lame jokes. He always has a dumb joke to cheer her up. It’s one of her favourite things about him.

Eventually she takes the last sip and sighs, throwing her back and basking in the moment, enjoying the feel of moonshine settling in her veins. Bellamy sighs too, but his is tinged with the colour of sadness that causes her to crack open an eye and look at him.

“It really is beautiful,” he says, soft and a little melancholic as he picks at the fade label on the bottle.

Clarke reaches over to give his hand a soft squeeze. “I wish he was here to see it too,” she says, “Out of us all, he deserves this most.”

Bellamy twists his hand so that their fingers are interlocked. “I want us to deserve this. All of us.”

“We will. We won’t make the same mistakes this time around. We learnt from them. No more fighting or wars or… crazy AIs. Let’s just  _ live _ .”

“I like that,” he mumbles, “Just living. Maybe I could open up a library.”

A giggle slips out. “Maybe I could paint it for you.”

“I want it red. With a yellow door.”

“And green windows?”

“Mhmm. With violet trimming.”

“And oranger shutters.”

“Maybe a grey roof.”

“The shelves will have to be white of course.”

“Oh yeah, definitely. And I’ll have a desk in the centre of it all. A big, pink desk.”

They both break out into a fit of drunken giggles and Bellamy tilts his head back, exposing the column of his throat.

“I missed you,” he says, so soft that she probably could have dreamt it, but it’s the bob his throat and the sheen of vulnerability on his face that gives him away.

Their hands are still linked and she finds herself squeezing his.

“I missed you too Bellamy.”

They stay there, watching as one of the suns finally set, disappearing behind the planet as it leaves the other one alone in the middle of the sky. It’s all breathtakingly beautiful and she’s glad she has Bellamy here with her to enjoy it with.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com)


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